Gaëlle Delort’s work is built upon field research, drawing on geomorphology, anthropology, and architecture. She explores the connections between human and geological timeframes, playing on the tension between the depth of the world and the surface of images. Working primarily with large-format photography, she describes her approach as “photographic infiltration.” Since 2020, she has combined her practice with caving.
Karst (2020 – ongoing) takes root on the Causse Méjean, a limestone plateau in the Grands Causses sculpted by erosion and crisscrossed by a vast underground network. Sinkholes, chasms, and cavities—explored as far back as the Neolithic era, feared as entrances to the Underworld, and later scientifically explored in the 19th century by Edouard-Alfred Martel—become the terrain for a photographic investigation into the geological and human memory of a territory.
“Developments (2024)” extends this approach by expanding the exploration to include a dozen natural cavities in the Occitanie region. Working in the darkroom, in collaboration with geomorphologists, geologists, and archaeologists from the GET, TRACES, SETE-CNRS, and BRGM laboratories, Gaëlle Delort conceives of underground environments as living archives of Earth’s history—infinite laboratories of vision where known and unknown forms continue to reveal themselves. The title of the second project plays on a double meaning: in photography, development transforms the latent image into a visible one; in speleology, it refers to the cumulative length of a network’s galleries. This ambivalence sums up the entire approach: bringing to light what remains buried, whether it be an image or an underground world.
Born in Aurillac in 1988, Gaëlle Delort graduated from ENSP Arles with honors in 2022. She lives and works on the Causse Méjean. She has exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles (2022), the PhotoSaintGermain festival (2024), and the Mulhouse Photography Biennial (2026). In 2024, her book Développements was published by Filigranes Éditions. Her photographic, editorial, and installation work explores the conditions under which images emerge and the perception of landscapes.
gaelledelort.com
